1. If controversy arises between people, they should go to court for judgment. When the judges hear the case, they shall exonerate the innocent but condemn the guilty.
2. Then, if the guilty person is sentenced to a beating, the judge shall force him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of blows his wicked behavior deserves.
3. The judge may sentence him to forty blows, but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite with contempt.
4. You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain.
5. If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law.
6. Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel.